[excerpt]
Radioactivity levels soared 47-fold over just five days in groundwater from a
monitoring well on the ocean side of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power
plant, the plant operator said Aug. 5….
TEPCO has been struggling to deal with the enormous amounts of water used to
cool the damaged reactors and block the flow of contaminated water into the
ocean.
[end]

SEOUL, Aug. 13 (Yonhap) -- South Korea detected
traces of Xenon, a chemical element usually found near recent nuclear
activities, in the country's atmosphere in June, but it does not seem to have originated from North Korea, government sources said Tuesday.

According to the sources, the Korea Institute of
Nuclear Safety detected traces of the colorless, odorless noble gas on three
occasions in June. Xenon is detected in trace amounts after nuclear bomb tests
or other nuclear activities.

News on Tuesday of the detection in South Korea of
traces of a rare radioactive isotope often found soon after atomic bomb tests
has prompted questions, but provided little in the way of answers.

Officials said it would be premature to conclude
that the xenon isotope is connected to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program,
pouring cold water on initial speculation of this sort.

North Korea’s atomic program jumped to the top of
headlines this year following its February bomb test and an announcement that
it would restart its mothballed nuclear facility in Yongbyon, north of the
capital, Pyongyang.

Lee Ho-ryung, a nuclear specialist at the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses in Seoul, told Korea Real Time that traces of xenon are detectable only for one to two weeks after “abnormal” nuclear activities–such as atomic bomb tests or radiation leaks from a nuclear reactor…. Ms. Lee said that the xenon traces didn’t necessarily originate from North Korea. They may have come from Japan, which is still struggling to recover from radiation leaks at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, she added.

IN
ABRUPT ABOUT-FACE, JAPANESE GOVERNMENT TURNS ON TEPCO, SAYS ITS UNABLE TO
HANDLE CLEAN UP

Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an unlikely
companion with environment protection campaigner Greenpeace as both indicated Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501)
isn’t up to the task of containing the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Greenpeace’s comments were blunt, Abe’s less so,
though they both agreed on the seriousness of revelations that radioactive
groundwater is gushing into the Pacific Ocean from
the crippled coastal atomic station north of Tokyo.

CRITICALITIES?

I am quite concerned about the pattern that emerges out of the data assembled above. Detections of short-lived Iodine and Xenon radioisotopes indicate with little uncertainty that nuclear fission has recently occurred. The recent global media flurry about Fukushima suggested something was up because the radioactive water contamination has been ongoing for over two years and the Japanese media have reported on it periodically. The recent media coverage suggested factors other than pure discovery may have been in play in shifting attention to the Daiichi site.

I've recorded in my log posts below the visual evidence I've assembled documenting ongoing steam eruptions at the plant. These eruptions worsened in June 2013 and haven't ceased until the last week, when they seemed to have been reduced. I am concerned.

1 comment:

'High-level radioactive tritium found in seawater at Fukushima plant port' [eight and 18 times in one week, ] The Asahi Shimbun

[excerpt] Concentrations of radioactive tritium in seawater from the port of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have risen between eight and 18 times in one week, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Aug. 23.

It seems highly likely that the contaminated water is spreading into the sea beyond the port. [end]

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201308240067

Is the tritium spiking because more contaminated water is reaching the port or is it spiking because nuclear criticalities are occurring?

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).